Identifying artifacts?

[milo]

What's the standard strategy for IDing randarts?
Does wielding/wearing randarts ID all their attributes?

Are unrands always fully IDed by default (on the floor; in shops; wielded/worn by dudes)?
A shop had both 'a bloodstained hat' and 'the +2 hat of the High Council {Archmagi, Wiz- Stlth-}'; I assume the latter is an unrand, because it's IDed, not necessarily because it's apt?

[Sprucery]

What's the standard strategy for IDing randarts?

Waste an ID scroll if you're afraid of Contam or other bad properties. Otherwise just wield or wear.

Does wielding/wearing randarts ID all their attributes?

Yes.

Are unrands always fully IDed by default (on the floor; in shops; wielded/worn by dudes)?

Yes.

A shop had both 'a bloodstained hat' and 'the +2 hat of the High Council {Archmagi, Wiz- Stlth-}'; I assume the latter is an unrand

Yes. Note that some shops have all items identified, also randarts.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

The robe of misfortune disguises itself as an ordinary randart until you identify or wear it, FYI.

[KoboldLord]

Usually I leave randarts on the floor, because I can tell at a glance that they are going to be useless junk for my character. Almost all weapons and body armors fall into this category, and those are the majority of generated artifacts.

If we're talking about an aux body slot randart, then I will probably actually try it on before I discard it in disgust. If it's extremely early in the game, I might put this job off until I've found a spare remove curse scroll, because -5AC cursed can be kind of bad in the early game, but once I have ready access to remove curse I'm not going to worry too much about drain or contam or the other id trap artifact qualities. Those are minor hindrances, but nothing caused by taking an artifact off is anywhere near as bad as continuing to wear a typical randart.

[Dharmy]

Worship Ash.

[Celerity]

I only read-ID if all scrolls/potions are identified and I happen to have identify scrolls left over, otherwise I don't bother. Sometimes I even wear-ID artifacts that I would never conceivably use, because it's fun to identify things, especially weird glowing things...

Special mention that you probably want to use scrolls on randart amulets, since Faith is a possibility.

[majesstic]

Worship Ash.

Seriously, Ash removes so much of the tedium of making space in your inventory, picking something up, and equipping it only to drop it 5 seconds later because it's absolute garbage (~90% of artefacts). I wish more gods provided this ability.

[archaeo]

I wish more gods provided this ability.

Or we could just remove identification for most items.

For now though, KoboldLord is right. In the early game it's probably smart to ID as much as possible, but by the midgame players usually have all the tools they need to deal with problematic artifacts.